Compass

Sixteen Degrees (November 10th)

Sixteen degrees and balmy in still air;
a big black fly is basking on a chair;
what's left of apple leaves, beneath the glare,
sun-infused danglers languishing there.

Ra rakes crevices of mackerel sky
to smoky veils that far beneath these fly;
the blackbird rasps a feline-warning cry
in the dimmed cool of a lidded eye.

The last plump, defiant apple-bauble's gone;
yet among these words no leaf has fallen;
sunlight streams back through alveolar thorn;
illusion rends these silhouettes, untorn.

Oh, yes a lazy breeze might flap this page,
rock raspberry leaves, puppet-play to stage;
only a robin flit-falls, fluttering mage,
spells of stillness to define and manage.

Then smoky veils stream back, despondently,
wind lifts, stirs all; a brown leaf falls near me,
an oak leaf from a far garden, strangely;
hedgehopped sparrow chips in the apple tree.

These odd chess moves in magic of a day
an idle man observes, little to say:
"Rhyme to rhyme four, I think," but on the way
alert for vagaries that tinge the play.

Sixteen degrees and balmy in still air
a big black fly is basking on a chair
what's left of apple leaves, beneath the glare,
sun-infused danglers languishing there...